The Lost Colony
by the frog princess
Summary: Some years in the future, pilot Alonzo Solace returns to Planet G-889 with a supply ship.


"Are you sure this was the place?" 

"The God damned comm dish is right there in front of your face! Of course this is the place!" Alonzo Solace was beyond any attempts at polite conversation. 

"There should at least be graves," the other man began, but Alonzo cut him off with a look. 

"What about the satellite sensors?" Alonzo asked, yet again. "Aren't they picking up anything?" 

"We've thought we've had something a few times, but every time we go in for a closer look all we find are the grendels." 

"Grendlers," Alonzo corrected absently, walking away. He headed further down the beach, not toward anything in particular just away from the others. Gazing blindly into the wind he blinked back tears. 

He thought he had prepared himself for the worst. He'd braced himself to see Julia, his beloved Julia, a septuagenarian. He'd considered the inevitable deaths that might have taken place in over four decades. He'd even been prepared -- half expected even -- to find a colony in ruin. Be he had never prepared himself for -- nothing. 

"Solace," one of the men called. "It's time to go back to the ship." 

Alonzo kept his back to them for a few more moments while he made his decision. Turning back to them, he said firmly, "Give me a VTO." 

"Huh?" 

"Give me one of the VTOs. I want to do another aerial check." 

"We've been running aerial scans for the last seventeen days. One more isn't--" 

"I said that I want to do another fly over," Alonzo growled. "Damn it, these were my friends. They were counting on me. I have to know what happened to them." He cast another lingering glance at the useless shell of what had once been New Pacifica's comm dish and repeated, "I have to know." 

The man shrugged. "You're the boss." 

Alonzo couldn't repress a shudder as he flew effortlessly over the same terrain he had once labored so hard to cross. In no time, he set the craft down in a hauntingly familiar place. 

He wasn't sure which would surprise him more, finding her still here or finding her vanished like the rest of them. 

It was the former. 

"Hey, Devon," he whispered, a catch in his throat. "Long time, no see, huh?" 

Devon Adair stood as they had left her -- a sleeping beauty inside her protective cryopod. A rag and a pile of rotted sawdust were all that remained of Uly's "Terrian" staff. 

"Where'd they go, Devon?" Alonzo breathed, unable to fight the urge to sob any longer. "Where'd they all go?" 

The woman had no answers for him. 

"The Terrians won't talk to me. They know I'm here but they won't let me in. I don't know if they're angry that I went away -- or if it's something else." 

Alonzo paced back and forth inside the old ship. Unaware of the irony that the one person he could unburden his soul to was the one person who couldn't hear him. 

"The colony ship was sabotaged," he continued. "We'd kind of expected that, tried to take all the precautions we could think of. But we weren't prepared for how they did it. It wasn't the ship itself that was sabotaged. It was the supplies it carried. Everything was contaminated, worthless. A thousand people hit the beach at once and we weren't ready for them. No medicine, barely enough food and water for ourselves--" 

He took a deep ragged breath. 

"We did the only thing we could think of. We unloaded all the cryogenic chambers and put everyone we could back into stasis. And then someone had to go for help. Guess who?" He laughed shakily. "Alonzo Solace to the rescue." 

He stopped pacing and stared at Devon's face. 

"But they're all gone, Devon. Every last one of them. They didn't leave any messages. No clues. No hints. Nothing. I guess a lot could happen in 44 years but now we'll never know what it was. 

"I'm leaving again, Devon. My crew doesn't want to stay any longer and frankly I don't see much point of it myself. I just came to say goodbye. We're off-loading the supplies -- maybe the Grendlers could use it -- it's bought and paid for anyway. The others all gave me their credit codes when I left. We pooled our resources and -- well, I'll give you one thing Adair, you pay well. There's gonna be some fat well-dressed Grendlers this winter." 

Alonzo turned away and slowly made his way outside. If he could transfer Devon's cryochamber to the supply ship and take her back to the stations maybe the doctors there could identify whatever mysterious illness had nearly killed her and might one day find a cure. If -- maybe -- might. It didn't matter. If Alonzo were sure of success he still wouldn't try it. This was one reality that he could never awaken her to. 

Without looking back, Alonzo whispered into the breeze, "Sweet dreams, Devon." 

THE END


End file.
